Jon Pahl at Religion in American History reflects on Obama’s call to “begin again the work of remaking America”:
Barack Obama’s inaugural speech signaled a fascinating new twist on an old role for religion in American culture. Platitudes of civil religious discourse, exploited so effectively by recent administrations—“sacrifice,” “God’s gift of freedom,” and the ritual invocation of God’s blessing on America—were present, but muted. Obama’s chief theme was that religions provide people with spiritual strength to be responsible citizens; to work for the common good.
This was not a speech about mystical union with some millennial destiny. Indeed, Obama’s clear articulation that “God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny” means that history is up to us. What America will be depends upon what we do, not what some hidden hand might provide.
This was a speech about the spirituality of work. “What is required of us,” the 44th President intoned, “is a new era of responsibility—a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.” The President here argued that it is through our common work that humans find spiritual fulfillment, this side of eternity.
Read the full post here.